This selection of the finest classical recordings available, which first appeared in 2009, is the most authoritative and entertaining guide of its kind. However, after five years any guide needs sprucinhttp://maginsight.com/the-168-best-classical-music-recordings/ I didn’t want to compromise the inimitable style of the original, so rather than revise it, I’ve added some ideas of my own.

There are now two new suggestions in each category, and three brand-new categories. The result is an even fuller map of classical music recordings. There are more landmarks, while whole areas which were blank are now filled in. Time to go exploring in this rich area of musical experience. Ivan Hewett (2014)

71) William Lawes – Consorts to the Organ (Phantasm) - Linn Records

William Lawes, who died in a Civil War battle, composed these pieces for five or six viols and organ in the 1630s. They’ve been described as a peak of chamber music, worthy to stand alongside Bach’s Musical Offering and Haydn’s string quartets Op. 33. Phantasm make them sound phantastic, appropriately.

The group Phantasm leaves no room for doubt how dance-like this music was intended to be - and how far Lawes distanced himself from traditional and courtly norms of dance music. This is music that breathes, pants, and gasps; it leaps, strides and creeps along, every time in a different way with flowing transitions as well as shocking harmonic stumbling blocks. Magnificent! ... Fantastic music performed by Phantasm.

This 2-SACD set explores the unique creative output of English Renaissance composer William Lawes. "The Royal Consort" brings together a collection of what were at the time strikingly innovative and unconventional dance tunes, comprised of 10 sets (or "setts" in 17th century lexicon). They are recorded here for the first time in their complete original versions for four viols and theorbo.

Whisper it, but this must be one of the best-kept secrets in the UK classical calendar. The Lammermuir festival takes place in churches and stately homes around East Lothian, the part of Scotland with the softest contours and most hours of sunlight per annum. There’s a quiet class about the whole thing that generates a special kind of listening; for all the dark arts of conjuring festival ambience, Lammermuir tends to simply programme right and let the music do the talking.

A late-night concert at St Mary’s in Haddington – a riverside church, staunchly gothic and moodily floodlit – featured the viol quartet Phantasm delving into some of the most searching music ever written. JS Bach never finished his epic contrapuntal masterpiece The Art of Fugue: the final passage, in which he enigmatically encrypted his own initials, simply cuts out mid-sentence and nobody quite knows why. The manuscript doesn’t specify instruments, and Phantasm made it their own, spinning each line with a sense of lyrical, wide-eyed storytelling that summed up Bach’s love of song and dance as much as the formidable mathematics of his counterpoint. I only wish they hadn’t played an encore: sure, their Purcell Fantasia was gorgeously lissome, but I wanted to leave with Bach’s mystery still hanging in the dark.

To Phantasm's amazement, Lawes's Royal Consort (Linn Records) is #2 in the UK Specialist Classical Charts for the week of 23-30 May 2015, and - what's even more startling - #9 in the Classical Artist Albums.

The Festival's theme this year was Oddballs (Querköpfe).Modifying the Wagnerian logo visible on the Konzerthaus portals, Phantasm sought to 'conjure up goodly spirits' by 'honouring' some wonderfully eccentric English 'masters' - Lawes, Tomkins, Jenkins, and Gibbons.